It's a Thin Line
by azamystic
Summary: Because things never end up the way we want them to. After the war is won, reflections are made. Slash. Character death. Postwar. Oneshot.


A/n: Yay! for inspiring music. And youtube. Yay for youtube.

It's a Thin Line

The late afternoon sun shines on a nameless tombstone. Destined to be forgotten by time, it hides in its foreboding location, a silent forest, where dying trees' blackened branches reach to the sky, praying for death. The stone and its three identical companions seem out of place, or maybe they fit perfectly. The line is thin.

Very few people know this place exists. All but one of them chose to forget. He stands there now, hugging his threadbare cloak to his body, a futile attempt to shield himself from the biting autumn wind.

No one knows he's here; he took care to prevent that. There would be consequences if it was reported to the right people. But not nearly as harsh as they would be if he were someone else. He was a war hero, after all. Never say there aren't perks where death is concerned.

He falls to his knees, the image of a defeated man. He wonders, not for the first time, why he's there to begin with. He starts to speak, his voice as threadbare as his cloak, a shadow of what it once was.

"They didn't bury you with your family. They should have. Even you deserve that." A pause. "No one knows you're here, not even me. This may not even be your grave. There's really no way to tell, after all."

He stops talking, the silence of the woods now even more overbearing, or maybe just that much more bearable. It's a very thin line.

"I always respected you, you know. Not that I ever would have admitted it. Ever. But you were always so sure you were right. So sure that what you had been taught when you were growing up couldn't possibly be flawed. No matter what anyone else told you, you refused to budge. Even when your side started losing. Even when battle after battle was lost, and there was practically no hope left. You never even considered the fact that maybe it was because you were wrong all along."

The light begins to fade. Maybe it's because it's just getting later in the year, but he knows that's not it. It always gets darker earlier now, blurring outlines that were already hard to make out.

"We won, of course, just like I knew we would. Your side didn't stand a chance. Everyone, I mean everyone of your kind is gone, and everything has changed. The government took over, trying to clean up after the war, they said. Everything that happens goes through them, and they don't miss anything."

The only sign of the fast approaching night is the lack of light. There are no chirping insects, no nocturnal birds to sing the song of darkness. Only the fast fading sunlight that was far to dim in the first place. There is nothing that can be recognized as twilight.

"I blame you for the way the world is. You're the one who gave me a grudge. Because that one night, that one damned night you made me feel like I was the only one who mattered. You made me think that maybe we could find some happiness in the pain that was everywhere. That maybe a life I had only ever dreamed of would be waiting for me that morning. But that morning you were gone. Something I never would have done to you, by the way. Or anyone else for that matter. I was raised with better etiquette than that."

The already chilling wind picks up, ripping through the bare branches of sorrowful trees. Pulling his cloak tighter won't help, and he knows. He attempts it anyways.

"I was so angry. I felt so used. A feeling I wasn't familiar with, but a feeling that soon became my constant companion. I won the whole war for them, the whole damn war, and all I got was a fancy title that doesn't mean anything and a little public recognition."

There is no moon tonight, the stars doing nothing to enable vision. The complete darkness surrounds the man like a cloak. Smothering him, or protecting him. Two totally opposite things, and yet it could be either one. The line is almost invisible.

"I killed Potter. And the only reason I did was to prove to you that you meant nothing to me, and to get the satisfaction of knowing you would hurt, you would bleed over your friend's death. If I had known you were already dead, I might have acted differently."

The night air is freezing. Yet despite the cold, or maybe because of it, he can't go numb.

"Potter represented everything that the world had to be. A balance of light and dark, yet one side always overcoming the other slightly, only taking a grain of rice to tip the scales. And in the balance's imperfection, it is perfect. But in the death of Potter, the light vanished, and shadows can't exist without light."

Pains shoot through his legs, blood flow interrupted from the kneeling position he had assumed over half an hour ago.

"You brought me up so high, only to drop me back down. So I'm just here to tell you Weasley, the world's gone to hell, and every bit of it is you fault."

There is no line between love and hate, the two blur into one awesomely powerful emotion. And in the bitter cold of a forgotten forest, Draco Malfoy feels neither.

A/n: Well, erm, this took a sharp and surprising twist! I didn't expect this to happen, but it did. Just a clue, this was originally going to go into my A Series of Ron/Draco Drabbles. Bet you can't figure out the ship! O.o


End file.
